Particle beams are commonly used to manipulate objects and, in particular, miniaturized objects. For example, a particle beam can be directed onto a surface of an object to remove material from the object or to deposit material on the object. This process can be enhanced by supplying a process gas to the object, wherein the process gas is activated by the incident particle beam such that products of the activation are deposited on the surface of the object at or close to the location of incidence of the particle beam, or such that products of the activation form compounds with particles of the object which are removed from the object. The particle beam can be an electron beam or an ion beam.
If it is desired to remove material from or deposit material on a surface of an object within only a surface portion of the total surface of the object, the particle beam is conventionally scanned line by line across the surface portion. In such process, a scan direction is selected, and the particle beam is subsequently directed to plural positions arranged on a line oriented in the scan direction. If an edge of the surface portion is reached, the processing proceeds with a next line displaced from the previous line in a sub-scan direction, and so on.
It has been found that results achieved by scanning surface portions of an object along subsequent lines does not always meet the expectations.